Artboyz Palette

 That's right kids! We've been busting our butts for months and today's the day. The festival and tour of lofts runs Saturday from 11am to 7pm and Sunday from 12 to 6pm. Live Music! A Juried Artist Market! The Opportunity to Roam Unsupervised Around a Stranger's Home! Ya'll come!

I went to converse.com and designed my own custom Chucks. I LOVE them!
 

 Thanks  to everyone for the kind words regarding Maria's sister. Now that we've covered death, how about some life? I'm going to try to take regular quick snaps of the Small Wonder's baby bump as it progresses. She had just come in from a run when I got this one. Not much to see yet. 

I know what you're thinking. How can you fit a whole human being inside that tiny little body? 

My wife's younger sister passed away Saturday afternoon due to ovarian cancer.  Peachy was such a sweetie and we're all more than a little overcome with sadness. Peachy was born with mild autism that became exacerbated by a childhood accident. She was playing under a table and stood up too fast. Apparently the trauma was enough to leave her with significant brain damage. She never had much of a life as it was, so her cancer seemed doubly unfair. I mentioned here that she'd been diagnosed last December. She didn't respond well to the chemo and Friday night her lungs gave out. She lasted nearly a day on a respirator until the decision was made to let her go. 
I'll always remember;
She was funny. Sometimes when you didn't think she was paying attention to a conversation, she'd suddenly chime in with a line that would just crack me up. Once when Christopher had come along for a visit, she actually got one off that brought us both literally to tears.
She was also a great audience. Occasionally, I'd say something cute just to get her to smile. She had one of those loud, long unapologetic laughs that gets you giggling too.
If you watched her body language carefully, you could tell that she absolutely hated being condescended to and treated like a child. 
She used to watch professional poker on tv and I'm pretty sure she completely understood the game. It seemed to make her happy.

From left to right: My wife, her Mom, and Peachy in her Grandmother's garden.

  

We actually caught it last Friday, but this is the first chance I've had to comment. My comment is this;
Oh my sweeeeet geeky jeeeezus! It was fucking fantastic! Now that Marvel has started their own studio, their characters seem to be getting the treatment they deserve. If you haven't seen it, here's a tip; stay 'til the end of the credits.

 Well, that's what we're calling it for now anyway. Here's the story;
As anyone who knows me and my little wife at all can attest, we have always been strongly anti-kid. Not generally speaking. Just as far as they concern us. We were vehement about it. We'd get soooooo annoyed whenever we'd meet someone who upon learning we were married would instantly ask, "Kids?" I fucking hates the supposition that being married HAD to lead to kids. 
Nearly a decade ago, when we were getting married, we agreed that we were not interested in kids. We did, however agree to table the discussion for a later date. Just in case we changed our minds. The further along we went, the less likely it seemed that we'd ever go down that road. 
But then...
We go down to Seacrest Beach with the neighbors each year and rent a bunch of houses for Labor Day week. Sort of a post Summer wind down. September 2006, Maria and I went down a day early and had the house to ourselves for a night. We cooked a nice dinner together, got schnockered on martinis and got ourselves knocked up. Total accident, and not exactly a welcome surprise. We went back and forth about what to do, but before we could make a decision, the decision was made for us. Maria miscarried and that was that. Problem solved.
You'd think we'd have been relieved. To our very real surprise, we weren't relieved at all. We were actually a little sad. It was so strange. We hadn't been pregnant a month. She wasn't even showing. Still, it shook us up a bit.
Now, some of you may recall that we went through a pretty tough time late last year. She was going bug-nutty-batshit on me to such a degree that I really thought a divorce was unavoidable. We went to counseling though and worked it out. It was NOT easy, but we did. Her behavior was inexcusable, but underneath it all was a truth that had escaped me. The whole mess began exactly a year after she lost the baby. Once we pushed past the bullshit that was spewing from her mouth and addressed that fact, things began to come together. I don't mean to say that it was that simple, but that turned out to be a big piece of the puzzle. Anyway, alot of pretty heavy rocks were kicked over and in the end, we turned out to be fine. 
Once we came back out into the light there was still a question to be answered. Do we want to have a kid? Maria's answer was yes, and I was still on the fence, but the more I thought about it, the more comfortable I got with the idea. I mean, I'm 42 years old. I think about things like not really having the freedom to run around with the guys until 5am drinking and whatever, but how sad is that getting anyway? And what am I gonna do, tell the woman who has invested more than ten years in me that if she wants to have a kid, she's got to go find someone new to do that with? At 36? Clock's ticking! So I said yes, but with two very strong caveats;
1- Exactly! One will be quite enough and 
2- Our kid is just going to have to be an urban kid. I have no desire at all to live in a house with a yard and play Ozzie Nelson. Noooooo thank you! I think I'm compromising quite enough thank you. Loft living is my choice in life and my kid can just deal. If Maria wants to live in a house with the kid then they are more than welcome. I'll just visit.
So we agreed and stopped any pretense at contraception. I am absolutely positive that little Ned here was conceived on what I like to call "The Night of the Red Boots".

Okay, enough with the cynicism. Today we got our first ultrasound and got to hear the heartbeat. IT WAS SOOOO COOL! I find myself actually giddy with excitement!
 

 Last night was another fantabulous Dr. Sketchy's at the Eastside Lounge. Our lovely and talented hostess lorigami, presented us with the unbelievably gorgeous Scar13. I've just realized that I never caught her real name. I sure caught everything else though. Here are some pics;

Even Death thought she was hot...


lorigami wore a pretty dress...


Spontaneous Twister broke out during the breaks...


Tiki-Hawk


One of my sketches...

 The Newnan Spring Artwalk was Friday night and the Flint Gallery had an open house. They've finally toned wayyyy back on the interior design side of the business and emphasized the gallery side. All of the artwork is downstairs and well hung on neutrally colored walls. It ended up being a pretty good show. My favorite thing kept happening. While in mid conversation with someone, the managers would come over to tell me that someone was admiring my work and wanted to meet me. I fucking love that.

As some of you know, I'm a freelance artist and as such, am inherently lazy. Chris and I have been working hard to lay a solid foundation for our new business, Team Artboy. The centerpiece of our plan is an ongoing caricature operation at The Georgia Aquarium. If we can make this work, it will mean a major change in fortune for us both. Not to mention being good for the aquarium itself and the many local artists we want to share it with. To this end we have been killing ourselves trying to behave like proper businessmen. Something we've showed no demonstrable talent for in the past.  So:
*We've spent the past two years slowly worming our way into the aquarium. Trying to demonstrate our entertainment value while also bending over backwards to "fit in visually" with the aquarium.
*We've hired a tax professional to help us clean up the considerable mess we've made of our fiscal past.
*We've hired an attorney to file new articles of incorporation. 
*We've designed a logo and had shirts made with that logo proudly embroidered over the left breast.
*We've designed and created pre-printed paper that includes fun facts about aquarium animals in order to better meet the aquarium's educational mandate.
*We've submitted a proposal to the aquarium offering 10% of our sales as well as pro bono caricature entertainment services at one fundraiser per quarter
Here's the interesting bit; we offered a handsome percentage when we first started working outside in the aquarium courtyard. They only asked for $40 a day per artist. Naturally, we were happy to oblige. $40 is nothing when you're probably going to take in anywhere from $5-800. When they finally let us inside and our sales really shot up we went to them and said we felt that they deserved more. Our offer was $40 a day per artist unless that artist's sales were $500 or more. Then the aquarium would earn a full 10% of which the balance would be paid at week's end after sales were tallied. Remember, the aquarium is a non-profit educational organization. They rely on ticket sales and donations to operate. Allowing us to ply our trade there just means more money for them. After three months of no response, they came back with a demand for 20%. Considering the fact that we went to them and suggested they should get more, I find this a tad insulting. We're probably going to end up giving it to them though. I know 20% doesn't seem like much but I really wanted to be able to pay my artists a ground breakingly high percentage. It's going to mean less for them, but I suppose they can live with it. 
Since we moved inside we've only been working weekends, but we knew that spring break would bring a surge in business and it'd be prudent to be open every day. The thing is that I thought spring break was supposed to be the week leading up to Easter. I'm not religious or anything, but I thought that was the whole point. So I worked nine days in a row through Easter weekend and did very well. Only it turns out that depending on whether you're talking about grade school or college, or differing states schedules, spring break actually covers about three weeks. 
So I've basically worked nearly every day for three weeks. The days I wasn't working, I was driving to gigs that I'd previously obligated myself to. Including a weekend festival in Charleston and an afternoon gig in our nation's armpit, Pensacola, Florida. 
All of this would have been fairly manageable except that we're also dealing with some serious family issues. Maria's sister has what appears to be terminal cancer. This would be bad enough, but her Mother also has undetermined health issues on top of her being a Catholic drama queen. So there's been alot of back and forth to Chattanooga to take care of them. 
Add all of this up with one more family issue that I can't quite share yet ( it's a good one kids. Gimme another week or so ) and we have a recipe for serious stress. My back and neck have been in ever tightening knots for days.
Today I went to Sweetgrass Spa and treated myself to the best massage I've ever had. Seriously, what a pro! Her name is Katie and she reminded me of the Shane character from the L-Word. She put a therapeutic hurtin' on me that I'll never forget.  Bottom line; I went in feeling like crap and walked out lighter than air.
Now we've got a little down time until the Summer business hits. We've got to formalize our agreement with the Aquarium, order credit card machines, finish the website and so on, and so on, and so on... 

I was going to write a long post about how this past week totally sucked, but my internet keeps going in and out. Rather frustrating...

 Tonight we enjoyed another Dr. Sketchy's. It was a laid back kind of night. Only five people showed up, but that's not really a surprise considering the kind of week we've all had. What with tornadoes, spring break schedule weirdness and the distraction of preparing for the upcoming resurrection of our lord and saviour, The Green Lantern. The lovely and talented lorigami  presented us with the lovely and talented Cynthia. Rather easy on the eyes I must say. Here are some pics;

The Hottie Du Jour


My last sketch of the evening. I think she fell asleep.


A ten minute quickie. Don't bother, I already hear the jokes in my head...

 I just realized that lorigami hasn't commented on any of this tornado business. She and her husband have a house in East Atlanta. Hope they're okay.

Tonight, Maria had decided to go visit a girlfriend of hers at a Buckhead restaurant so Christopher and I decided to go to our little neighborhood pub, Sidebar. Sidebar is next door to the Mark nightclub and across the alley from the old Fulton County Courthouse and twenty feet from Slice Pizzeria. We were sitting at the bar playing video poker and sipping scotch when the whole bar was shaken by a huge BOOM. We sat unflapped as everyone ran outside to find that the Mark's awning was gone, broken glass was everywhere and most amazing, Slice's wrought iron outdoor tables and chairs were gone too. They had blown away! I had just been outside ten minutes earlier trying to make a call and it was completely calm. You can't believe the damage down here. It took alittle while for the reality to filter into our feeble brains that an actual tornado had hit our neighborhood. Once it did, we headed back to our building to assess any damage. We were lucky. There was minor exterior damage to the Metropolitan, but the Healy, just a block away had it's lobby rotunda wrecked. From our vantage point, we can clearly see whole window blocks just missing from the upper floors of the Equitable and Suntrust buildings. We can't see it from our window, but I've been told that the Flatiron building is screwed up too. We gathered with some neighbors and toured the wreckage. Amazing how quickly we became the white trash trailer park of American cities. Here are some pics;

This is about three blocks from our loft. The CNN Center.


Same area. Tourist heavy.


The Philips Arena Sign has basically collapsed onto our favorite Chinese restaurant... 


This dangling traffic light (one of dozens in the same condition) is right in front of our building.


Heavy billboard falls on car. The iron beams just folded.


This is the Tabernacle entertainment venue. Earlier tonight, there were large letters on the front that spelled out TABERNACLE. Not so much anymore.


Centennial Olympic Park. The column on the ground in the lower left should be pointing in the same direction as the others.

My good friend and brilliantly gifted web design guru, Jason Vaughn finally found time in his maddening schedule to work on the Team site. I'm so jazzed! Here's the deal; I met Jason about fifteen years ago. He was still managing bars and doing web pages for friends for free. It was kind of a hobby for him. He'd often lament that he wished he could stay home and just do web work full time. Jason is my favorite success story. Fifteen years later, he's so fucking busy with web work that he has no time for anything else. He made  a name for himself designing flash based interactive games for on-line casinos and is so well paid for it that he paid off his house in one year. The downside of Jason's success is that he has little time to help out his friends anymore. His solution to this was to design an idiot proof admin program for any site that he builds. It allows the client to easily update their site without affecting the overall design in any way. So since he hasn't any time to really build us a site, he built a sort of "skeletal structure" based on our logo and needs, plugged in the admin program, and viola! Now all we have to do is fill in the content. It's soooooo easy! It'll take us about two weeks to finish off some of the new graphics. We're planning to do a movie poster type illustration for the loading page. That's going to take a bit of time. Here's a sneak peek;

 The subject came up recently and has been on my mind. Why do people like MySpace and Facebook so much? Back when I was doing the "painting a day" thing, someone suggested I try some cross promotion by posting on several other blog sites. You know, in an effort to increase sales. I tried it on Blogger for a while, but found them not so user friendly. It became too big a pain in the ass. Blogger doesn't seem too different from Live Journal, but LJ is definitely the superior tool. So why do so many more people choose to blog on Blogger? One night I registered a MySpace account. The next day, I logged on to set up a page and found literally dozens of friend requests from imaginary bimbos. I mean seriously! I hadn't even posted a photo yet. What the fuck is up with that? I have several friends with MySpace pages and check them once in a while. Question; what's up with the embedded music and videos? I'm sitting in my nice peaceful studio listening to whatever I want to listen to. I click on your link and am assailed with whatever crap you happen to like. I'm frantically trying to find the pause button. That's just obnoxious. 
I have to admit to being a member of Facebook, but I'm not sure why. A friend invited me a while back and I said, "What the hell". The thing is, I can't see what it's for. People keep adding me and I keep letting them, but why? It doesn't seem to have any practical value as far as I can see. Am I missing something?
I started this blog four years ago this week. I was googling an old friend and found her here. It seemed interesting, so I joined up. I've really enjoyed it so far. I've met some interesting people and made some friends. I even managed to mend a fence that I would've said was un-mendable. LJ is easy to use and socially non-threatening. No annoying ads or anything either. I'm glad that if I was going to go a blogging, that I ended up doing it here.  

 I've noticed lately that my mood seems to be unusually affected by the weather. Every time we've had one of these glorious Spring-like days, I get all energized and happy. All I want to do is be active. Go to the gym! Ride my bike! Fuck my wife! Even when they towed the Artmobile this week (I left it on a meter and got a ticket that said I was in a no parking zone- way to go officer shithead) and the Bear and i had to spend two hours getting it back, I was just happy for something interesting to do. It was a beautiful day! 
On the other hand, each time that the weather just decides to go to crap, I just can't get it together. Today was overcast all day. We've got another front moving through and talk of snow in the morning. I woke up today with a barometric pressure headache and a complete lack of desire to do anything. I guess I could be coming down with something, but man! Tired all day. No appetite. An overall feeling of malaise and poor health. I really hope it's the weather.

Finally got the vanity plates we ordered for the new Artmobile! Yayyyy!!!


Next up; new tires and a paint job. 

 I had promised Maria that we'd go see Alvin Ailey at the Fox on Friday, so away we went. Maria was raised on dance and often mentions the desire to go see some performance or other. Honestly, I went into the evening with the attitude that this was one of those things that you do for your spouse because it's what makes them happy. You go along with a smile on your face and afterward you nod and smile enthusiastically while she goes on and on about pas-de-deuxs or whatever. Except....... 
It was FANTASTIC!!! I mean really. Wow! I was absolutely enthralled through the entire performance. At some point during the third number, Maria put her hand on mine. I looked over and her mouth was open. Tears were sliding down her cheeks and I had a revelation. Not a major epiphany or anything. Just a stupid little significant other realization. When the person who loves you takes you to share in something that is really more for them than you and reaches to hold your hand, what they're saying is this; Look at this wonderful thing and take it in. Because whether it seems silly or trivial to you, what you're seeing is what's in my heart. It's who I am when I close my eyes and imagine. If you can see the beauty in this, then you'll see the beauty in me.

The only downside of Alvin Ailey is that all of the dancers are in such stunningly beautiful shape. You leave with a craving to go to the gym.
  

I worked the Aquarium all day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's shift was followed by working a Bat mitzvah at Dave and Buster's. Mitzvah's of all kinds are exhausting. The kids have a seemingly limitless amount of energy and tend to throng around you with it all night long. 
Today I came home absolutely enervated to find a certain someone waiting on my bed clad only in knee high red Wonder Woman boots. The cure for all ills!

 Finally had time to get a good photo of this. I'm calling her; 

"House of Glass Slippers" - 30x48 inches

 Anyone who knows me well is hip to the fact that I'm a major Muppet geek. There are more representations of Kermit the Frog in my house than should be allowed. So, naturally, when Maria told me that Jim's widow Jane was not only going to be speaking at The Center for Puppetry Arts, but that we'd been invited to the VIP reception, I went nuts! 
For those of you not up on your Jane, she worked closely with Jim as they launched his first show, "Sam and Friends" on a small Washington, DC television station in the mid fifties. She even performed the first incarnation of Kermit on many occasions. She is mother to his children and works with The Henson Legacy Foundation to help keep appreciation of his work alive. Jane came to Atlanta because The Center for Puppetry Arts is about to install the most comprehensive permanent exhibit of Jim Henson's work anywhere. Yayyy!!! Here are some pics;

This is Jane during the "Sam and friends" days


Jane regaling us with fun stories from those days


It was quite a thrill to get to tell someone who was so close to my hero what his work meant to me


A preview to the new wing. They have actual Muppets in there!!!